The concrete cross located on Mount Morkaiku in Elgoibar, a visible element of the Gipuzkoan landscape for decades, was toppled on November 18—two days before the 50th anniversary of Francisco Franco's death. The Basque Department of Security confirmed the facts and stated that the Ertzaintza has opened an investigation, after the Municipal Police alerted about the attack. The agents dispatched to the site verified the fall of the structure, although they did not find those responsible nor have there been any arrests.
Organized action: tools, planning, and anti-religious graffiti
Investigations point to an organized action. According to available information, a group of independentist activists accessed the summit of the mountain in a concerted and premeditated manner, equipped with a rotaflex, a ladder, and high-powered spotlights. With this material, they managed to cut and fell the cross, which collapsed amid cheers of celebration.
Additionally, graffiti in Basque appeared at the base of the monument with ideological and anti-religious content, which reinforces the thesis that it was a deliberate attack against a Christian symbol, and not just a prank.
A monument reinterpreted by the City Council as “witness of an era”
The cross had been erected during the Francoist dictatorship in memory of Carlos de Borbón y Orleans, uncle of Juan Carlos I, who died in combat in September 1936. Although it appeared in a 2019 report by the Institute of Memory, Coexistence and Human Rights, Gogora, dedicated to the removal of Francoist symbology in Euskadi, its presence on the mountain had acquired a different meaning over time for most neighbors. For the people of Elgoibar, the monument was part of the usual landscape and was mainly recognized as a reference point for mountaineering and local identity.
After the toppling became known, the Elgoibar City Council—governed by the PNV—convened a Spokespersons' Board and issued a statement in which it defended that the cross had ceased to be seen by the public as a political symbol. In that context, it explained that its historical memory policy had bet on reinterpreting the monument, removing the original inscription but keeping the structure as a “witness of an era”.
The consistory defended its conservation for pedagogical purposes
The City Council assured that the decision to keep the cross followed technical recommendations from experts, who considered that preserving it could help contextualize the events of the Civil War and evidence, by contrast, the totalitarian nature of the Francoist regime. With that objective, it installed an explanatory panel and integrated the monument into a historical memory route.
A new attack on the Christian presence in public space
The fall of the cross once again highlights a worrying phenomenon that repeats in different areas of Spain: the violent elimination of Christian symbols in public space. Beyond the debate about its historical origin, the cross represents a fundamental religious sign, rooted in the country's cultural tradition and present in the Basque landscape long before 1936. Its toppling, carried out in a planned manner and with a celebratory spirit, reveals a growing climate of hostility towards faith and its visible expression.
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